


Come with me

by caramelaire



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora is still She ra, Angst, Angst and Romance, But she and Catra are Bright Moon soldiers, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Glimbow Centric, Horde AU, Horde Bow, Horde Glimmer (She-Ra), Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Life in the Horde (She-Ra), Shadow Weaver is bad in all AU, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26382652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelaire/pseuds/caramelaire
Summary: [for Glimbow Week 2020: Prompt - Horde AU]“You said you’d come with me wherever I go!” Glimmer screams desperately, her hands shaking as she drags his weight across the hallway.Bow scowled, brows meeting and lips curled in a snarl. This is the first time she has ever seen him this furious at her. She didn’t like how it looked on his face.“I didn’t mean to join the Rebellion! How did that even cross your mind?!”—Role Swap | Horde AU - Horde!Glimbow where Glimmer struggles through her redemption arc as she returns to Bright Moon as its long-lost princess, and Bow inevitably heads to his corruption arc when he's left behind in the Horde—or at least, that's the idea.Yep, just threw that M rating right up there.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Glimmer & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 80
Collections: Glimbow Week 2020





	Come with me

**Author's Note:**

> RIGHT. I have fallen in love with this AU; the jury is still out on whether this will become a series. The more I envision it though, the more likely it is becoming. 
> 
> Glimmer doesn't have any teleportation powers/sparkle shit because she isn't connected to the Moonstone yet.

_ “You’re the princess of Bright Moon! The Queen hasn’t stopped trying to get you back ever since Shadow Weaver took you!”  _

The voice of the blonde Bright Moon soldier who went by the name of Adora—or was it Corra? Alhora? She doesn’t even remember—echoes in Glimmer’s head as she barrels through the Fright Zone’s drab and cold hallways. 

It had been a rough day of interrogating their prisoners. Each and every one of them had been relentless in telling her that she was the stolen princess of some sparkly kingdom beyond the Whispering Woods. 

As if Glimmer didn’t already know all of that anyway. She just didn’t care, and why should she? It wasn’t going to change anything. 

_ “Things don’t have to be this way, Glimmer. You don’t belong here.”  _

She ignores the cadets who stumbled nervously upon seeing her, bumping and almost tripping over one another as they tried but failed to salute and move out of her way at the same time. Glimmer heedlessly walks past them, paying them not so much as a glance.

_ “You have a happy and loving life that’s waiting for you in Bright Moon. Let us go, give us the sword, and come with us. You’ll see.” _

She enters the code to open the metal doors, jabbing a bit too aggressively at the numbers. Impatiently, Glimmer taps her foot as the door slowly and heavily opens to reveal the Horde’s training area.

The sound of laughter, squeals and chatter immediately greets her. It grates against her mind like rusted metal, bile rising to her chest and making an unpleasant combination with the irritation frothing in her head.

She hates this place.

Sifting through the band of rowdy children and teenagers, Glimmer’s eyes zoom in on the Horde Instructor, and occasionally, tech master, in the room. He’s never hard to spot. She just has to find the crowd that would always surround him, and he’d be lost somewhere in the middle of it.

Her stomach flips when she sees and hears him laugh, a sensation that instantly sours at the disappointing fact that it’s not directed at her. She can fix that.

“Commander Bow,” Glimmer addresses the man as she approaches. 

Bow turns around, the gesture mimicked by the rest of the crowd surrounding him. Glimmer catches the way the cadets’ jolly and teasing smiles drop instantly as they spot her, their eyes widening as they scurry into a line to salute. 

Their hands were trembling, expressions stoic but tense, and they looked at her the same way they would look at Shadow Weaver. Not like how they looked at Bow, who they treated as their friend and trusted mentor.

Not like how those Bright Moon prisoners looked at her… With hope, faith and not an ounce of fear even when she was already spewing threats at them. Believing that  _ she _ was their mislead princess who belonged with them; someone worthy of redemption. 

_ “You’ll be loved. And you’ll have friends. A family. No more cells like these or torturing prisoners. You came from a good place, Glimmer. I know there’s good in you.” _

Glimmer clenches her teeth together hard enough that the pressure pulses into her skull in what felt like a budding headache. 

She didn’t need to be loved; she was Shadow Weaver’s prodigy, she was already feared. She didn’t need friends or a family, Glimmer thought as her gaze followed the taller man who was approaching her with a wide grin.

“Hey! What’s up? You don’t like coming here,” Bow points out casually, but she hears his unspoken question:  _ Is everything okay? _

Glimmer gazes up at him for a moment and at the smile he wears anytime he’s around her. She doesn’t need friends, a family or a good place. She has Bow, and wherever he is, is as good a place as any. 

“Come with me,” Glimmer says, roughly taking his hand and attempting to drag the archer away. Bow resists, turning back to his cadets and waving at them with his other hand. 

“We’ll resume training later in the afternoon. Study your manuals! Bye!”

Glimmer glimpses back at them, saw how they happily waved at Bow and then cowered when they noticed her eye on them. The incessant noise earlier had faded out into a tense silence somewhere between her entering the training area and approaching Bow. She hates it as much as the laughter.

Wanting to get out of that room as soon as she could, Glimmer yanks Bow’s hand harder when he remains immobile, causing him to stumble forward.

“Ouch,” He comments, now gingerly following her. A complaint on the tip of his tongue. “Sheesh, what is the hurry?”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit too friendly with the cadets?”

Bow blinks at the back of her head as they walk out the metallic doors and into the Horde’s dreary corridors.

“Come on, we’ve known those guys since they were kids! We’re like their older siblings now, so we have to look after them,” Bow chats. He grips her hand so that he’s now holding her instead of him just getting dragged along. “Like how we did with each other, right?”

Glimmer scowls. “What are you talking about? I don’t know who those people are.”

Of course, she wouldn’t. Shadow Weaver made sure of that. 

Since Glimmer could remember, the Horde’s second-in-command had always made an effort to isolate her from everyone else, teaching her sorcery and dark magic any chance she got. Almost obsessively.  _ Her _ prodigy, she would call her, and it made Glimmer shudder now as it did when she was merely six years old.

Unlike her, who is hated, envied and feared in the Horde, Bow is loved and favoured by everyone else, including her. He’s her first and only friend, after all. Glimmer remembers the first time she saw him as a kid; war-torn, recently orphaned and traumatized after the Horde  _ saved  _ him from another town the Rebellion attacked. 

He was ushered together with the rest of the other kids the Horde recruited. Glimmer remembers smiling at him and his face lighting up when she did. She thought he was cute... Maybe she still thinks so.

All these years, Bow had stuck with her even when the others around them slowly inched away. 

Even when Shadow Weaver would take Glimmer away for hours, exhausting her to the brink of collapse, Bow would be waiting in their bunk bed, awake, no matter how late it got, so he could talk to her. And they would simply share their day.

Good things for him. Funny things about his new friends. His progress in archery. Praises from the Horde Instructor. Senior officers complimenting a new invention of his.

Horrible ones for her. Sorcery training for  _ hours _ without rest even when her whole body was already shaking. Insulted, then punished with dark magic when she failed. Watching prisoners cry and beg when Shadow Weaver taught her how to torture and interrogate for the first time. 

She doesn’t go into detail about it, keeps some of the things she does from him. But he would still comfort her, regardless of what she says and doesn’t, and Glimmer would silently wish she didn’t have powers if only so she could spend more time with her best friend.

“And the Horde isn’t your family. It’s a job,” Glimmer spat as she led them into another floor. “You do what you’re told, and they give you food, shelter and privileges. Give-and-take.”

“Sounds like a family to me,” Bow snickers and it got through Glimmer’s crappy mood, as he had the uncanny ability to, and she smiles at what he said.

“Ah, there it is,” Bow says cheerfully, pinching her cheeks. “Eleven.”

Glimmer rolls her eyes, swatting him away before her lips drop once more into a frown. “I’m serious though. You might not be a Force Captain, but you’re still higher-in-rank. They won’t respect you if you’re too familiar with them. It blurs the line.”

Bow abruptly halts, still gripping her hand. She’s thrown backwards by the force, her shoulder colliding with his chest. She winces, then glares up at him. Bow can be so gentle and willing sometimes that she forgets just how strong he actually is.

“Ouch,” Glimmer pushes against his chest roughly to straighten herself, frowning. “What?”

Bow leans down cheekily with one eyebrow raised and hands on his hips. 

“Are you jealous?” 

Glimmer deadpans. “You wish.”

“I do wish, and you grant it every time,” he leans down and kisses her forehead. Glimmer lets out a displeased sound, shoving her fingers up his face until his lips are squished. The beginning of a wide grin inches its way to the edges of her mouth at the silly face he’s making before she bites the inside of her cheeks to stop it. 

“Ah! Why? You almost smiled!” He whines.

“Shut up.”

She playfully shoves his face and takes his hand again to resume walking.

“I’m not jealous. Everyone knows we’re close, and if they see that you’re a friendly pushover, they’ll think they can do the same with me. It’s bad for my reputation.”

She’s talking out of her ass. And Glimmer knows that Bow knows when she sees him shake his head with a smile. No one would dare think that about her, no matter who she associated herself with.

Not with all the horrid things people have heard her do during invasions on the battlefield. After Glimmer came back from their missions, she would see the looks they’d give her. As if she was a different breed of a monster than they were. A worse one.

Her stomach sours as she remembers what they would whisper about her in the locker rooms. Those hypocrites. Who were they to act all saintly? Bow’s the only different one though. He’s the only one who really knew and cared about her, and Glimmer’s grateful enough not to ask why.

“You’re wrong though,” Bow says as they turn another corner.

“I’m always right.”

Just as she said it, Bow tugs her into the opposite direction, looking at her smugly, “My room’s this way,” he gestures with his head to the other corridor. 

Glimmer blinks, her feet had absently walked her back to the direction of Shadow Weaver’s chambers. She sighs, letting him lead her by the hand and swallowing the lump in her throat when she’s sure he’s no longer looking.

“See, you’re not always right,” he says in a sing-song tone.

“Then, what was I wrong about?” Glimmer challenges.

“That familiarity blurs the line over respect,” Bow says. They stop just in front of his door. “Look at us. The line’s totally blurred, but I respect you and you respect me.”

Glimmer crosses her arms, smirking. “Respect you? I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use.”

“Of course, you respect me,” he reaches around her, grips her cape and uses it to drag her closer to him. He leans in to whisper in her ear, “You respect me enough to say ‘please’ about a hundred times in bed.”

Before she could even stop it, a giggle escaped through her lips at his implication, the same time Bow placed a tender kiss onto her pink hair. He pulls away and points a triumphant finger at her lips. 

“Aha! That’s the twelfth one today,” he says cheerfully.

Glimmer doesn’t bother to hide her grin, shaking her head at him. He’s the only one that had the privilege to see her this way. “How many did you bet?”

“Twenty,” he says smugly. “I’m halfway there and it’s only before lunchtime.”

Every day they would make a bet. During every miserable morning when Glimmer contemplates on everything she has to do for the name of the Horde, Hordak and Shadow Weaver, Bow would give her a number. How many times can he make her smile or laugh today? 

And it’s a silly thing, too childish even, but it’s the only thing she looks forward to every day. Him, making her smile. In fact, Glimmer is almost convinced that he is the only thing that keeps her sane these days.

“I wouldn’t be so smug if I were you,” She gave him a straight look but the twinkle in her eye betrayed her amusement. “I’m in a really bad mood today.”

Bow grins. “I know, that’s why we’re in front of my room,” he says, dragging her closer to him by the waist until she’s mere inches away.

“How did you know I was taking you here?”

Bow chuckles, confidence shining in his gaze, one that always made Glimmer’s toes curl in anticipation. “Please, Glimmer. Don’t insult me. I know you better than anyone.”

With those final words, Bow leans down to capture her lips and she breathes him in as the only stress relief she’ll ever get every day. They moan against each other and Glimmer finally ceases to hear the words and screams of the prisoners she’s tortured and questioned all day.

More importantly, it proves that blonde Bright Moon soldier wrong.

_ This  _ is where she belongs. In the arms of her best friend with a  _ lot _ of benefits.

She feels him stumble backwards to open the door to his room, the knob jiggling as he turns it. Glimmer curls her hands over his crop-top uniform as he leads them inside. Momentarily pulling away from her to close the door, Bow chuckles when he hears her whine in displeasure, grabbing his collar to drag him back down to her.

When they’re like this, their kisses are always hungry, and desperate, and searching, and  _ needing. _ Neither of them let up, treating the space between them like a battlefield, earning their victory with every moan, gasp, whine and every other tempting sound they could extract from the other’s wet lips.

Bow reaches down to grip her thighs, feeling his fingers dig into the soft and warm flesh there. It still fascinates him; how she could be so frightening to others—threatening, dominating and powerful—and yet with him, all he sees, feels and hears is her softness. Her soft skin, her soft gaze, her soft breaths, the soft sounds she makes whenever she utters the word ‘ _ please _ .’

“Please,” she says, breathlessly, as if she had heard his thoughts. There it is; he loves it. He wants more of it.

Bow puts all his strength into his limbs as he lifts her up until Glimmer can wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. He loves carrying all of her. It reminds him that she’s so small, and yet she is always the biggest person in any room. 

When they stood in front of his bed, the soft mattress—contraband that was gifted to him by his cadets (see, being everyone’s favourite has its perks)—temptingly waiting for their weight to crash into it, Bow broke their kiss.

“You’re also wrong about another thing,” he says, panting.

Glimmer opens her eyes, her gaze heavy, wanting and a bit irritated. “Why are you talking?”

“I’m trying to make a point.”

She tightens her legs around his waist to press him firmer against her, the sudden stimulation making Bow groan loudly. 

Glimmer smiles, giggling breathlessly, “Yeah, a part of you is definitely making a  _ point _ .”

He laughs, then leans forward to kiss her smiling lips. “That’s thirteen.”

Glimmer rolls her eyes, but she decides to humour him, placing her lips on his neck, tasting the salty tang of his sweat and proceeding to nibble and suck at the flesh there.

“What am I wrong about?”

He groans as Glimmer suddenly sucks too hard before her warm tongue soothes over the tender spot. The cadets are going to tease him again about all the marks that will undoubtedly decorate his neck after this. After all, he discovered Glimmer can be quite the artist with her lips.

“I  _ am _ friendly, but I’m not a pushover,” he grunts, gripping her thighs firmly. “Because pushovers can’t do this to the Horde’s most feared Force Captain,” with his strength, he disentangles her from him in one push and throws her weight onto the mattress.

Glimmer gasps as she falls, losing his sturdiness before the soft mattress catches her below. For a second, she stares at him wide-eyed, heart pounding. Towering over her like this while she’s flushed down to her neck, sweating and panting for him, Bow could feel blood rush to every vein in his body, the steady throbbing of his chest travelling down below his hips.

The surprised look on her face turns into a chuckle as she realizes that he had just, in fact, tossed her in bed like a rag doll. If anyone else treated her like that, they’d already had a spell wrapped around their necks as she made them eat threats.

Fortunately for him, he’s her Bow. The only threats he’ll ever hear is if he doesn’t give her what she wants right now.

“Fourteen,” Bow smirks, gently touching her smile with his thumb. “I’m on a roll today.”

“Is that what turns you on?” Glimmer says seductively, the smile still on her face as she delicately traces a finger over the bulge in his pants. Bow’s chest tightens as he holds his breath, watching her intently. 

“That you’re fucking the most feared Force Captain in the Horde?”

Bow grins and finally crawls onto the bed, roughly dragging her closer to him by her hips and nestling himself in between her soft thighs. When they finally touch and he’s pressed completely against her, feeling her warmth through the fabric of her uniform, Bow traps her under him. Arms on either side of her head, his lips hovering over her anticipating ones while her harsh breaths wash over his own.

“Wrong again,” he says, “What turns me on is that I’m fucking  _ you _ , Glimmer,” and he seals his words with one meaningful and pointed thrust. Her only answer is a loud, unbridled moan that he readily silences with his awaiting lips.  
  


—  
  


Glimmer laughs against his chest, pulling the blanket over them to shield their nakedness from the Horde’s persistent drafts. 

“Nineteen,” he groans, feeling his cheeks heat up as her laughter concedes into giggles. 

“Cursing just doesn’t have the same edge when it’s you,” she snickers. “You un-vulgar it.”

“Shut up,” Bow glares playfully, before gently removing the hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, then running his fingers through her damp hair. She hums with a content smile, closing her eyes, as she lets him stare at her. “At least I won the bet, ‘cause that one’s twenty. And you said you’re in a bad mood?”

At the reminder, Glimmer’s chest twists painfully, but she ignores it in favour of gazing back at her best friend. He’s sweating, still a bit breathless and flushed from their activities. Glimmer’s the same, the throbbing still persistent between her legs, sore and tender as the sensation of him filling her repeatedly and the overwhelming pleasure it brought her still lingered there.

When she sought him out randomly like this during the day, he always knew how to take her. Unlike the tender or sometimes lazy coupling they did before sleeping or in the morning after waking, when she dragged him to his bed during working hours, he knew her well enough to make it hard, rough and intense. To drive away all her stress, hurt, and everything else—both the bad and the good until he’s the only one in her mind—with every hard thrust that vibrates against her flesh and bones, releasing all the twisted tension inside her when he finally drives her over the edge. Pain and pleasure mingling together enough that it’s comforting.

“I  _ was _ in a terrible mood,” Glimmer whispers.

“Better now?” Bow watches her silently trace the muscle lines on his chest. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

The faces of the prisoners from earlier resurfaced. Looking at her in that way. Pleading her to come back home to her mother who has been fighting for her all these years on the other side of the war zone.

Even after everything she did, they didn’t look at her like the monster she was. They looked at her like she was someone to love. The same look that Bow would always give her.

_ “You have a happy and loving life that’s waiting for you in Bright Moon.” _

The pleading voice echoed again, persistently.

Glimmer shakes her head to answer him, and Bow doesn’t push it. He never does. She doesn’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want to know or because he knows her well enough.

She shifts, props her head on her palm to look down at him. “Okay, you won the bet.” He always does. Every single day and she lets him. “What do I have to do?”

Bow purses his lips. He would always make her do mundane things, like say ‘hi’ to another Force Captain, or smile at a cadet, or compliment another officer. Small things that showed her he was trying to change whatever image she had in the Horde into how he sees and knows her. To make this hellhole more of a home for her. 

It never works, but she likes to humour him.

“Do something you normally wouldn’t do,” Bow says.

Glimmer raises an eyebrow. “That’s so vague.”

“Surprise me,” he says cheekily and Glimmer thinks about it.

Something she normally wouldn’t do? What does she normally do?

Her jaw clenches, hands curling into a fist. 

This afternoon, she’d spend the remainder of the day in Shadow Weaver’s chambers as she teaches her another dark magic spell. She hated those. They were excruciating and painful, and it always felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out.

But Shadow Weaver wouldn’t let up, not until she succeeds. She’d hear biting words all night, about how she wasn’t living up to her potential, that she was a slow learner, that she was letting Bow distract her. It’d take hours of pain before Glimmer could finally walk out of her chambers, usually at the break of dawn.

In the morning, they’d attack another town. The same twisting agony of using the dark spells a hundred times more sickening when she sees the desperate and terrified looks of the people she inflicted it on. How the pain could transform even the most sensible humans into writhing, incoherent creatures.

She  _ knows exactly _ how it feels, all too acquainted with it after all these years. When she reaches the privacy of her own quarters, Glimmer would violently vomit out whatever flimsy meal she had that day until it begins to feel like she’s churning out her guts.

In the afternoon, she’d question and interrogate everyone they caught. Erasing memories. Inflicting pain. Manipulating them. They’d plead and beg. They’d talk about people they loved. They’d curse at her. 

And then in the evening, she’d report to Hordak to get nothing more than biting praises for a job well done and suffocation with the slightest of failures.

Every day it would repeat. This cycle of pain and torment.

She hates this place.

_ “You’ll be loved. And you’ll have friends. A family. No more cells like these or torturing prisoners. You came from a good place, Glimmer. I know there’s good in you.” _

The words echoed more strikingly in her head as she imagined what that life would be. The blonde soldier was right. There is good in Glimmer. 

Every time she unexpectedly meets Bow in the hallways, every time he makes her smile and laugh, every time they banter and bicker, and every time he kisses her, Glimmer  _ knows _ there’s good in her. And it’s him. He’s the only good thing in her life.

She imagines what life would be with him, away from all of this, in a palace and with all the time in the world to spend with each other. 

Maybe they’d be more than what they are now. Maybe she’d finally let it happen.

_ “Things don’t have to be this way, Glimmer. You don’t belong here.” _

Was that possible? Could she and Bow be happy, away from all of this? Was that an option for her? For them?

“Do something I normally wouldn’t do?” Glimmer muses out loud.

Bow gives her forehead a light kiss. “Yeah, and it doesn’t have to be big. There’s actually a lot of things you don’t do, like clean your room, for example.”

Glimmer deadpans and pinches his ribs, making him yelp. Then, her expression turns earnest, her hand on his chest so she can feel his erratic heartbeat under her palm. 

“Bow… would you come with me, wherever I go?”

Bow observes her for a moment, confusion and concern lingering in his gaze. He curls his hand over hers, letting a finger press against her pulse so he could feel her life beat against his fingertips. 

“Is this related to the dare?”

Glimmer bites her lower lip. “Maybe.”

“Of course. I’d come with you anywhere,” Bow shrugs, answering as if it was already obvious. Then, he smiles sheepishly. “I won’t come with you to Shadow Weaver’s chambers though.”

Glimmer chuckles lightly, knowing the lengths Bow goes through to intentionally avoid the sorceress as if she was the plague. 

“Twenty-one.”

She absently traces the smile on his lips with her fingertips. “Okay, I’ve thought of something to do.”

“ _ Let us go, give us the sword, and come with us. You’ll see.” _

  
—  
  


“This was not what I meant when I said to do something you normally wouldn’t do!” Bow yelled angrily at her. She had handcuffed his hands as Adora and her dragged his weight towards the hangar. 

Alarms rang throughout the headquarters, the lights flashing red. They didn’t have much time. 

“Do we have to bring him?! He obviously doesn’t want to come!” Adora’s half-feline girlfriend, who Glimmer thinks is named Cathy or Catara, complained. The rest of the prisoners she freed had gone on ahead of them.

Glimmer’s eyes flashed angrily. “I am  _ not _ leaving without him!” She turns to Bow. “Stop struggling! Don’t make me use magic on you.”

“Glimmer, let me go! Let’s talk about this! This is  _ insane _ ,” Bow continues to yell over the chaos and deafening sounds that surrounded them. His eyes were bulging, still unable to process what was happening since she burst into his room with their prisoners in tow, dragged him out and cuffed him when he refused to come with her. 

“Have you lost your mind?!”

Maybe she has. But it’s too late now. Shadow Weaver had seen them, and Glimmer had a split-second advantage of trapping her in a spell so they could flee.

The news of her defecting and betraying the Horde would travel and Hordak would know. There’s no turning back now.

“You said you’d come with me wherever I go!” She screams desperately, her hands shaking as she drags his weight across the hallway. 

Bow scowled, brows meeting and lips curled in a snarl. This is the first time she has ever seen him this furious at her. She didn’t like how it looked on his face. “I didn’t mean to join the Rebellion! How did that even cross your mind?!”

They reach the hangar and the half-feline soldier swiftly enters the aircraft while Adora and Glimmer try to get Bow to settle down as he begins to resist more violently the closer they get to the ship. 

Then, with a move they had not anticipated, Bow disassembles the handcuffs, kicking Adora on the stomach and pushing Glimmer away. He scrambles to his feet, taking the blaster from its holster on his waist, and points it hesitantly at both of them.

Okay, maybe Glimmer should’ve taken that. She had only thought of separating him from his bow and arrows.

Bow’s eyes were frantic but the grip on the blaster firm and unwavering.

Adora groans frustratedly, practically bouncing on her heels as she hears the thundering footsteps of the Horde’s soldiers echoing against the metal floorings. The soldiers were close; they didn’t have time.

“Talk to him! I’ll open the door!” Adora screams at the Force Captain and then rushes to the control room.

“Bow, please,” Glimmer pleads fervidly, and the word Bow used to love was now scathing to his ears. “Come with me! Let’s get away from all of this! Let’s be happy for  _ once _ !”

“We are happy, aren’t we?!” Bow says surely but falters when he sees her hesitate. “...Aren’t you?” he asks again, now uncertain. The edge in his voice imploring her to agree with him, because how could she not?

Glimmer shakes her head, regretfully.

“I’m not. I am _miserable_ every day,” Glimmer begs and her heart clenches as he sees the hurt flash in his eyes. “It’s because _we’re_ the bad guys. Don’t you understand?!”

Bow shakes his head, disbelievingly. “There are no good guys or bad guys, Glimmer. There’s only war;  _ you _ , out of anyone, should know that! Or have you forgotten that the Rebellion, those ‘good guys’ that you claim, was responsible for the death of  _ my _ family?!”

Glimmer clenches her jaw. Of course, he wasn’t going to come with her to the other side so easily. 

Bow’s seemingly a mild-mannered guy but Glimmer knows his hatred for the Rebellion has always been nestled deeply in his chest. Ever since his family died in a battle the Rebellion instigated that had gone haywire. A whole town reduced to casualties. And the Horde’s cult brainwashing only worsened the resentment.

It didn’t for Glimmer though. She knew the reality of what their  _ beloved _ organization was really doing. Always one foot out of the door, she was just searching for a reason to leave, for a way out. This was it. 

“And we’re also responsible for hundreds more!” Glimmer argues, her voice scratching painfully against her throat. “And I don’t want to do it anymore!”

“They’ve hurt our comrades, Glimmer! Our  _ friends _ ! People we eat with, people we’ve grown up with!” He says, agitated. “I watch them come back after every mission, bruised, hurt, bleeding and  _ traumatized! _ And  _ I’m _ the one who has to patch them up every time! How can you join the people that do that to our family?!”

His words knock the wind out of Glimmer, reminding her once again just how starkly different the Horde was for them. Anger begins to boil in the pit of her stomach; the envy she would feel for him every time he tells her stories of his wonderful days inside the Fright Zone returning with a force.

“Family? I don’t know who those people are! I don’t know who you’re talking about because they have  _ never _ been my family!” Glimmer shouts. “My family is out there fighting to get me back and maybe I actually want to come home. I don’t want to be here anymore. While you get buddy-buddy with everyone else, I torture people! While you patch up our ‘comrades’, I’m making our enemies bleed with my own hands! While you sleep on your soft mattress, I am  _ abused! _ And I’ve finally had enough of it!” 

Bow backs away from her, the blaster almost slipping from his grasp.

As the gravity of her reality attempts to sink into him, he denies it. It couldn’t be  _ that _ bad for her, right? She was stressed most of the time, yes, but she was a Force Captain. It came with her position.

The moments they spent smiling and laughing flashed into his mind. The intimate nights they enjoyed and savoured together. How could she not have been happy then? How could she want to change everything and leave it all behind?

Would he come with her if she left?

He then remembers the smiles on his cadets’ faces; children that he watched grow up, some even since they were toddlers. It’s his duty to look after them as their instructor. He can’t betray them. Can’t turn his back on his comrades who he had taken care of all these years. He can’t fight against them, won’t stand on the other side of the battlefield and point a weapon at them.

He can’t do that, even for her. 

Eyes flashing threateningly, Glimmer’s hands begin to light up in an alarming black and purple light. “I am leaving this hell, whether you agree or not… But I am  _ not _ leaving without you.”

Bow sees it before she can even cast it. Dark magic. He expertly avoids it with one fluid movement. When it passes, his hands tremble in the realization that Glimmer had just attacked him with her magic for the first time in their life. He stares at her disbelievingly, mouth dry and open. 

Another beam of purple light hurls towards him and Bow leaps away. Aiming at her, he shoots an electrifying shot that brings her to her knees with a wail. He scrambles to his feet to approach her and knock her out but a pink shield of magic springs up from the ground before he can even get close.

Yells and stomping feet resound against the metallic floor and walls and Bow turns around to see their comrades enter the hangar. He feels relief flood him. Gesturing towards the other soldiers to stand back, he faces his best friend who was still recovering from the shot. Standing up on unsteady and trembling knees, she holds her palm up to them, ready to cast a spell whenever.

“Glimmer, stop this nonsense!” Bow pleads again. “It’s not too late. We can still fix this. I’ll talk to Shadow Weaver or  _ Hordak _ if I have to! I’ll convince them to give you a second chance!”

The image of Bow subjected to the same abuse she has endured all these years snaps something in her. Him on his knees, clutching his throat as he gasps for his stolen air. Black magic running through his veins painfully.

“Don’t you dare go near them!” Glimmer screams, and just when she’s about to take a step towards him, a strong and persistent hand on her arm pulls her back. 

Somewhere in the conversation, Adora had transformed into this 8-foot shining blonde woman, the magical sword gripped into her hands as she pointed it at the soldiers that were circling them. 

“We have to go now, Adora! Do something about her!” The half-feline soldier shouts impatiently from inside the aircraft.

“Princess Glimmer, we have to go  _ now _ ,” Adora says, pulling her incessantly. Glimmer winces, both at the title that’s going to take some time getting used to and the stinging pain in her knee. She falls against the tall blonde who readily catches her.

“Don’t touch her!” Bow yells, his voice cracking in that way that she used to make fun of. He points his blaster at Adora and shoots.

Glimmer casts a spell that deflects it. They had to go now. If Shadow Weaver or Hordak reaches them, it’ll be so much harder to flee. She desperately looks at Bow who has already fallen back closer to his comrades.

She could feel her hands shake. No, no, no, she can’t leave Bow. She can’t leave him here. She can’t go without him. She can’t. Glimmer groans in distress, a wave of tears rushing against the lump on her throat and threatening to overflow out of her eyes. 

But she can’t stay here anymore either. She can’t. She refuses to. 

Seeing Glimmer’s eyes glisten with unshed tears, frozen with her inability to decide, Adora takes her hand reassuringly and says, “We’ll come back for him. But we have to go now or we won’t be going at all.”

Glimmer finds comfort in the blonde’s firm words, recognizes it as the same one she feels with Bow. She gravely nods. Casting a spell around the aircraft, Glimmer effectively shields them from the blasts that came and prevents the Horde soldiers from nearing as they escape.

She sees the distraught look on Bow’s face as he realizes that they’re leaving—that she’s leaving him. He runs to the edge of the shield, pleading her name.

“Glimmer! Don’t do this! Let’s talk about this, please.”

Glimmer looks at him angrily. “Are you going to come with me?!”

“No!” he screams, voice cracking. “You can’t seriously ask me to leave  _ our _ home, everything we ever knew, to go into enemy territory!”

_ Home _ . The anger slowly bloated into hatred in her chest. After everything she just went through, after everything she just said, for him, the Horde is still a  _ home _ . A  _ family _ .

“Then there’s nothing left to talk about,” she spat at him, seething. “Let’s go,” Glimmer nods to Adora, gripping the blonde’s arm for support as Glimmer limps towards the entrance of the aircraft.

“Glimmer!” Bow tries again, frantically following them around the shield. “I don’t understand.  _ How _ can you choose the  _ Rebellion _ over us _? _ ” he says now, painfully, his throat raw as he tries to get through to her, as he has always been able to. 

_ ‘Over me?’  _ He doesn’t say it but he doesn’t need to; Glimmer sees it written all over the look of betrayal on his face.

Glimmer feels the same emotion lace around the thoughts in her mind. She glares at him. Glimmer did choose him. She chose this for him, for them, at first. She wants to be with him, away from the people that hurt and hated her. Who made her into this person she couldn’t stomach. 

But he hadn’t chosen her.

“Because you chose the Horde over me! Over  _ us _ .” She says it with emphasis. Because he hadn’t referred to the Horde when he said ‘us’ and Glimmer didn’t either. 

She sees him finally give up, knowing well by now how stubborn she was. A pained scowl that bloomed into anger graced his face as he helplessly watched her board the aircraft that would take her away from him.

“You’re so wrong about this...”

“This is the most right I’ve been in my entire life.”

And with those final words, Glimmer leaves everything behind. She left her hell… and she left her paradise. Felt herself breathe and suffocate at the same time. Soaring through the sky in this stolen aircraft, it still felt like Glimmer was buried six feet underground. 

She’s finally free, but at what price? The cold space beside her that he would normally occupy answers her loud and clear.

“Let’s get you home,” Adora grins at her comfortingly, beaming with happiness. “You’ll love it in Bright Moon. I promise.”

Glimmer smiles sadly. It’s the first one today, but who’s counting?

**Author's Note:**

> Ha, I love it so much. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as I did writing it. Please tell me in the comments what you guys think! I would love to hear from all of you. 
> 
> I also posted a fanart of this on my tumblr @caramelaire. Go check it out there!


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